Myths about atheism

I read a post earlier called “Atheists Should Be Monks“. I’m not sure whether that author really believes what he’s writing or whether he’s trying to troll.

John starts off with a conversation he had with another atheist and he comes up with this premise:

If God doesn’t exist, neither does evil.

Okay…I’m with you here, John.

If evil doesn’t exist then ‘maximally evil’ is incoherent.

Okay…

You’re using incoherence to accuse Christianity of incoherence.

You might believe in evil because of your religion, but several other religions would disagree with you and they have their own set of rules about what is good and what is considered evil. You have no tangible way to prove your religion is right about God and theirs is wrong. Both sets of tribes can simply claim their God said so and that’s the end of the argument.

Most atheists I know don’t use the word ‘evil’ but replace it with the word ‘ethics’. They may use the word ‘evil’ as an expression. Kind of like the way I say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes sometimes.

He continues:

When your philosophy isn’t a philosophy…

When your thesis is ‘content free’…

Why are you blogging?

Because we sometimes have to answer the claims made by religious people who presume to tell us what we think, believe and what we can talk or write about.

Kind of like John is working up to do in a few short paragraphs.

There are many reasons to talk about religion. I may not believe in religion or a specific deity, but the politicians who govern might and that may affect how they operate. Nearly everyone around me believes in a deity of one kind or another, and in some cases, those beliefs shape how they act.

For example, you have people who burn others alive because they think they’re sorcerers:

BANGUI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Rebels in Central African Republic have kidnapped, burnt and buried alive “witches” in public ceremonies, exploiting widely held superstitions to control areas in the war-torn country, according to a leaked United Nations report.

And:

The torture took place between December 2014 and early 2015 under instruction from leaders of the mainly Christian “anti-balaka” militia that has been fighting Muslim Seleka rebels across the country for more than two years, said the report.

When more people can talk about the silliness of believing in sorcery, these kinds of incidents may decline or stop altogether.

That is just one example. But regardless, just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it or share the philosophies or ideas that you DO believe in. The difference is that those philosophies aren’t supposedly handed down by a deity and I can change them as new information becomes available.

You shouldn’t mind since you’ve no point of view of your own.

You blog because you’re smarter than the rest of us.

Smarter than everyone who has lived before!

They obviously have a point of view…that’s what they’re blogging about.

They don’t necessarily believe they are smarter than you or anyone else either. Just like your blogging doesn’t mean you think you’re smarter than everyone else. They are free to share their point of view and you yours.

You’ve got it all figured out.

Ummm…the only ones claiming to ‘have it all figured out’ are the religious.

Atheism is NOT, in fact, ‘content free’.

It’s brimming with arrogance, outrage, and irrationality.

It offers a lush landscape of bitter contradictions and depraved futility.

And evil.

Many of the atheists I’ve met are very concerned with ethics. Not the childish way the bible gives out rules that often don’t make sense or that contradict one another, but really looking at the heart of the matter and figuring out what causes suffering and how do we best combat that suffering.

Also, the very act of calling us evil shows why we need to discuss atheism – to dispell such backward notions.

Why else would you deliberately destroy the glimmer of hope you see in other human beings?

How is atheism destroying hope? Do you now lack belief in God because of what we have said? Is that why you’re so angry?

Are you fit to take God’s place when you’ve convinced us He doesn’t exist?

No, but maybe reasonable and rational discourse can take the place of irrational, contradictory and violent myths.

Will your non-philosophy speak to the soul of a dead child’s mother?

Atheism won’t, but other philosophies or ways of thinking might, such as humanism. I know when I lost my father, I found no comfort in people telling me it was for the best and I’d see him again etc. I’d rather take comfort in the likely truth – I’ll never see him again, which also makes the times I did spend with him more precious. I think we need to find ways to grieve that transcend religious babble and fake platitudes.

He ends with this piece of advice:

…at least do your part to combat wickedness…

…shut up.

Nah. We will keep talking. Reason will eventually rise to the top and religion will die out. Not because we have to burn, rape or torture people to convince them, like religions often resorts to doing. And certainly not because we have to tell the other side to shut up like you just did, but because we make the better arguments.

Basically, she’s trying to describe someone who says they are a Christian but act as if they’re atheists.

I had no idea what practical atheism could mean. The actual definition made me stop and examine my own life, with more than a little fear.

You see, a practical atheist doesn’t go by the label “atheist”. They actually would identify as Christian.

So…a Christian then? If someone says they believe in Jesus and are Christians, then that’s what they are. Just because they might do things you think are un-Christian-like, doesn’t make them an atheist.

And why were you afraid?

The very fact that this loving religion made you afraid should be a red flag of epic proportions.

A practical atheist accepts God in theory but rejects him in..you guessed it..practice.

Do you follow everything in the Bible?

If you did, you’d likely be in jail. I guess you’re a practical atheist.

Then she gets to the actual meat of her post by giving examples of practical atheists.

This should be a hoot…

This is the church-goer who screws people over in day to day business dealings without a smidgen of remorse.

Church clearly isn’t doing anything for them then. Either that or they’ve learned the lessons too well and think they can just ask forgiveness later and a magic being will make it okay to be a douche. Religion is very good at taking away personal responsibility and hefting it onto the shoulders of a deity.

This is the person who asks God to bless them but never invites God into any other area of their life.

What does that even mean?

This is the woman blasting Gospel music on her way to meet her married boyfriend.

Um, no. That would be a Christian being a douche. Not all atheists or even a majority of atheists go around sleeping with married people.

Please take head out of buttocks.

Then she attempts to describe what it’s like to be a Christian:

Let me put it another way. Anyone who has encountered the living God comes away from that experience a different person.

If you were hit by a Mack Truck, people would be able to see the evidence. If you claimed to be hit by a Mack Truck, but your car was fine and you didn’t have a scratch on you, people might have a hard time believing you’d really been in an accident.

That sounds thoroughly unpleasant. So being a Christian is like being hit by a transport truck.

Being a Christian merely means believing in Jesus. The rest is just window dressing. Christian’s can’t even agree on what Christianity wants, which is why you have around 40,000 sects.

This dear friend said she’d been a “Christian” for a long time, but a few years ago, looking back, she’d never really seen the evidence of it in her life.

Maybe because it’s a myth and this deity doesn’t exist?

Practical atheists (and actual atheists, for that matter), God loves you so very much. While you are still breathing, you can turn to him and ask for a legit relationship, for forgiveness, and salvation. He doesn’t hold grudges and he will help you walk through what it means to actually follow him.

I didn’t know you spoke for God, but thanks I’ll pass. I can ask for forgiveness from the real people I’ve wronged. No need for an invisible entity, and certainly not one as ethically reprehensible as the one described in the bible. If I ever need instructions on how to stone disobedient children, commit genocide by drowning or how to treat a slave, I’ll turn to your bible.

How about having a relationship with real people. They love you as well.

I found a new post that attacks the atheistic worldview based on whether or not that means life has purpose. It’s a little different than most religious material I read, but I find that the authors reasoning is flawed.

First off, whether or not life has purpose is irrelevant to whether or not God exists. Just because you may believe that in a perfect universe, some all-powerful disembodied mind needs to exist for purpose to arise, doesn’t mean it’s so. I can argue that natural candy flavored water gives water meaning, but the reality is that unless we add an additive, water tases like…well…water. Wishful thinking doesn’t change this.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get down to some of what he said:

But the question is, “How is something given purpose?” You see, mere existence does not create purpose. Purpose goes much deeper than existence. I submit to you that no thing can have a purpose unless there is a creator acting on the thing. Purpose does not exist without a creator.

Why doesn’t it?

Even in the example the author gives above this part, he states that you wouldn’t use scissors to light a fire. Basically, the purpose of the scissors is to cut things, but who gives these scissors purpose?

We do.

The scissors actually have no real purpose until we pick them up and put them to use. We also might not use the scissors to cut, but maybe we use them to pry something open or pick our teeth, although I wouldn’t recommend that last bit. Use a tooth pick, people. Much less potential for harm that way.

Anyhow, the point I want to make is that scissors aren’t conscious, which is why they need someone acting on them to give them purpose. Humans on the other hand are very much conscious entities. We give the scissors a purpose and we can give ourselves a purpose, while scissors are incapable of doing either.

Point being the author uses a really bad analogy to try and make his point.

Moving on.

I want you to look at purpose from an atheistic perspective. Without alluding to any god at all – yes, that includes the Cosmos or Mother Nature – can you tell me my purpose, my reason for existence? The honest answer to that is, “No.”

Um, why would you leave the universe and nature out of the equation? That’s a bit disingenuous, since neither of those things are God(s).

That’s like me saying, ‘can you tell me what the purpose furniture serves without alluding to a living-room, house or the people that may live in those structures.’

Just because you might not be able to come up with a reason for your existence doesn’t mean the ‘honest answer is no’.

How can I say that? Because while you may be able to conjure up a purpose in your mind, the simple truth is that whatever purpose you conjure up is exactly that: conjured up.

Conjured up like magic?

I rather think an all-powerful, all-knowing, disembodied, invisible mind with super powers is a little more likely to be ‘conjured up’ than a flesh and blood human brain that can form thoughts and experience existence.

From an atheistic perspective, I do not exist to help others, live with others, or even just live. I simply fortuitously exist. But as we said earlier, mere existence does not create purpose. There is no purpose driving evolution. Evolution is circumstantial, not purposeful.

Why can’t helping others be a part of an atheists purpose? What prevents it?

I know plenty of Christians who help themselves and rarely if ever lift a finger to help others. Did this God not let them in on their purpose?

it does not even exist even if atheists insist it does, and whatever purpose an atheist contrives, it is just as contrived as anybody else’s idea of what their purpose is.

Oh no! We have to think for ourselves!

Quick, someone hit the fire alarms and evacuate the planet!

From my perspective, you’ve essentially given up thinking and reasoning for yourself, because you allow primitive human(s) to do your thinking for you. They wrote that book you revere, and at some point they came up with their own reason or purpose and you follow along with it.

That means a person who says life’s purpose is to destroy things is just as logically accurate as someone who says life’s purpose is to preserve things.

Why would it follow that something that harms our species is more logical than an action that helps our species survive?

And sometimes preserving something is less important than change.

For example, the bible teaches slavery is okay and people used it to put people in chains. I think destroying that institution was a pretty good change. Preserving it would be unethical.

Just one of the many things the Christian God got wrong, in my opinion.

What I find amazing is that there are some atheists who are okay with the idea that purpose is a simple contrivance on their part. They still claim that life has purpose even though they know it does not.

You just finished saying some atheists have said they’re fine with purpose being created by us, and then in the next breath go on to say it doesn’t exist. If we make it exist, then it exists. If I think my purpose in life is to raise my children to the best of my ability, then that’s the meaning I have given myself. That doesn’t mean I can’t change my stance, but at that particular point in my life, that might be my purpose.

I honestly don’t see how the existence or non-existence of a disembodied mind would change that.

That is hypocrisy at it’s highest. Why? Because they insist that God does not exist, therefore we should not live by His standards. Yet they know purpose does not actually exist and they still say we should live with purpose.

Which God and what standards? As I pointed out above, if we went by Yahweh’s standards, slavery could be fine.

I think religions were created by people. It’s flawed, ancient thinking and like anything created by humans, faults may exist. Religion often tries to prevent changes from taking place, even when the evidence clearly shows that their book is wrong.

You don’t need a magic God in the sky to give your life meaning. Purpose and meaning don’t have to be eternal to be special either.

Ran into a post that attempts to refute new atheism, but does everything but make an argument against any atheistic position. Instead the author just flings mud against the wall hoping that something…anything sticks, including a charge (in the title of the piece) that atheism is the last superstition.

This is the sorry state we’re in – when not believing superstitious claims actually become a superstition.

The present-day atheists and their arguments are so ignorant and closed minded to many facts and historical data. They are not totally the least educated group of people in the world they are the most ignorant of history and philosophical thought.

Citation needed.

This isn’t an argument against their position. This is an assertion that you haven’t backed up. Anyone can call someone else wrong and assert that they’re ignorant or not educated, but you have to back that up if you want to be taken seriously.

What exactly are they ignorant about?

What historical data are you referencing and where did they demonstrate ignorance in regards to it?

Who is the least educated among the new atheists and how does that mean their position on God is wrong?

Not exclusively is it impossible to be an atheists and not be self refuting it’s a faith based position based on no real information for their position that no God exists.

It doesn’t take faith not to believe a claim, especially when that claim includes magic, miracles and contradictory holy books. And how exactly is atheism self-refuting? Atheism doesn’t make a claim. It merely rejects a claim. Atheism is the absence of belief in God(s).

It’s a fairly simple concept.

And I never understand when a religious person tries to compare their faith based position to what they think is an atheists faith based position. Who exactly are they trying to tar? What is the point of painting what they think is a faith based position as bad, while they themselves hold a faith based position and are often basing their entire lives around it?

I don’t get it.

Most atheists I have met are irrational, faulty and cannot account for the many assumptions of life they take for granted, they basically in secret borrow from he Christian worldview to even make an argument.

Example please? What exactly do we secretly borrow from Christianity to make an argument?

I hear this argument quite often but I never see an example.

I was perfectly happy with my atheism and felt it freed me from the fear of death as I wasn’t afraid of judgement (not that I’m a bad person!) and I was content with the knowledge that death was the end and I just went back to the earth and became part of the never ending cycle of life in that way.

So what changed? That’s the likely answer. I haven’t died yet so I can’t say for certain what will happen, but everything we’ve learned so far points directly towards the brain as the source of our thoughts, motivations, how we experience reality and our very consciousness. I think it’s certainly a better answer than a disembodied super mind taking you to a supernatural realm of bliss for eternity because you believed in him when alive. That system sounds more like a failed gold star system that doesn’t relate to reality.

I spoke to my husband about this, he lost his dad in very similar circumstances years ago and it rocked his atheism completely. He said it took him many years to be a happy atheist again.

I can understand that. I’ve been there.

When my father died, I experienced wanting to believe nonsense so that I could believe I’d see him again. I wanted to believe he was still looking down on me, watching me grow as a human being. I wanted to think he was still able to enjoy his grandchildren.

I was also surrounded by believers who kept stating how he was in a better place, that he was with his loved ones now etc.

But it’s likely not true. Death is a very powerful motivator. We fear it, and we fear what it means to those we love. But I think we need to find ways to cope with the reality of death instead of making up fantasy stories to cover up the pain and fear.

He is the Holy Spirit who lives inside me imparting eternal life moment by moment, He’s God the Father who shows me daily what a real father is supposed to be like.

I prefer my real father, who was there when I needed him, worked his ass off to support me, and who I could lean on in times of uncertainty. My real father didn’t teach me what it was to be a father by remaining invisible.

It’s interesting to me that most of the Atheists I’ve spoken with seem to think there’s something inherently foolish in one believing in and worshipping God and believing in the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ when many of earth’s foremost scholars share these very beliefs.

Citation needed.

Who are these scholars? You’re also making an Argumentum ad populum fallacy. Just because lots of people believe something, doesn’t make it true.

If you want to criticize atheism, by all means have at it.

However, you need to offer a little more substance than blind accusations with no backing evidence. If you’re going to argue that atheists are the least educated group, are completely ignorant and so on…you need to back that shit up.

So I ran across this little gem of a post today. The author starts off with saying, “I hope a militant atheist reads this some day…..”

Prayer answered. I’m not sure what a ‘militant atheist’ really looks like but if you mean someone who enjoys the topic of religion and doesn’t agree with a good many things religion teaches, I guess I’m a militant atheist. I’ll do my best not to disappoint.

So anyways, the author then goes on a brief tirade (only a paragraph long!) about how atheists are horrible human beings before saying that they have a few questions they want answered.

We’ll skip the hate and get right down to the asking of questions:

Throughout this blog entry I have some questions that some atheists should try to answer, and I have some recommendations as well as basic observations worth sharing with the lot of you.

I’m cracking my knuckles in anticipation. Bring it on!

we have, you. How did you get here? Well, you were born. Cut that in half enough times and you can go back a long time to the days where your own Lord and Savior Charlie Darwin SCRIPTED AND PREACHED in his doctrine that we “evolved” from monkeys.

Before writing about evolution, at least try to understand what it is. It’s not a religious text.

Darwin didn’t script or preach anything. Darwin published his theory of evolution and it was backed by evidence. Since then, scientists have continued to add to that theory and pull together an undeniable amount of evidence to back it up.

Darwin was also a Christian.

Here’s where your atheist doctrine starts to drown in its own sea of bullshit. If the big bang actually happened, what was the material that was the big bang, and more importantly, WHAT DID THAT MATERIAL PHYSICALLY RESIDE IN, IN ORDER FOR YOUR BIG BOOM THEORY TO TAKE PLACE? Cut that in half and we have, what, an empty universe of nothing or somethings that existed forever into the past? Cut that empty universe in half and what is IT residing inside of?

Let’s say you’re right. What created your God?

And if you reply is that it just was, why can’t you say the same thing about the universe?

What if there never was ‘nothing’? What if instead of nothing there has always been something that continually expands and contracts?

But either way, the gap in our knowledge doesn’t mean you get to stick your particular God in there. Or do you believe in Zeus and Odin as well? If not, why is your idea of God more plausible than theirs?

See…that’s really where your hypothesis breaks down, and while there is evidence for evolution and the big bang, there is nothing besides a book full of claims to back your idea that god did it – you know, pretty much the same thing every other religion uses to back their claims.

Lord Darwin and his many cult followers like Richard Dawkins for example, have a frame of mind born out of an animosity or hatred for Mankind itself.

Isn’t it your religion that teaches we’re all filthy sinners in need of a blood sacrifice to become clean enough to enter heaven?

Did I miss something? Because that sure sounds like a hatred for mankind on a grand scale.

Don’t say Christmas in schools now boys and girls, geez, that could be offensive to someone. Don’t say Jesus in the classroom anymore, because that is “offensive” to other religions. These are ideologies that are actually being practiced and instituted in North America. United Nations Agenda 21.

So government employees are allowed to push one religion over another as long as it’s your religion?

They’re being practiced because you live in a secular country. If children attend a public school, their parents should’t have to pay tax money to have their kids preached too. Just like you wouldn’t like it if a Hindu showed up and preached that Krishna was the true god and Jesus was bullshit.

How do you not grasp this basic premise?

Thoughtful quote break

The tiny handful of true “string pullers” still alive today, coming from very long lines of elite, fantastically wealthy satanists (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Clinton, Gates – Bill and Melinda, that is – …..to name a couple families and friends of those families ) who strive to achieve a state of trans-humanism

Do you have even a stitch of evidence that these people are Satanists?

Earlier in the original post the author accuses people of dehumanization and then they go ahead and practice it by calling people satanists because they don’t like them.

.If you are truly an atheist by definition, than don’t ever again convey a thought or idea supporting the paranormal or a deceased relative

I don’t believe in the paranormal either, but that’s not a prerequisite to being an atheist. If I don’t believe in god(s), I’m an atheist. That’s it. I can believe in anything else I want.

Forget Christmas and put your money where your mouths are and never, evercelebrate it again by buying gifts or having a meal or decorating a tree.

Thankfully, you don’t get to tell other people what they can celebrate.

Besides, Christmas has its roots in Paganism. So using your own logic, feel free not to celebrate it, since Christians stole it from them.

I’ll continue to celebrate Christmas. Not because I believe Jesus was a divine being, but because it’s a family tradition, we find joy in it, it’s fun and it’s an excuse to get together as a family.

If your science is so “uber-awesome”, than how is it that it’s still in preschool in terms of understanding how our brains and minds work?

You mean the science you used to type this blog post up with? The science you use to drive your car, heat your house, refrigerate your food, stay healthy with regular doctors visits…that silly science?

Yeah, it’s clearly for quacks. Screw science. It’s never done anything for us anyhow. Let’s go live in the bush.

The day is coming where you will see with your own eyes how non-evolutionary Humanity actually is. It’ll be too late for you by then.

Tada! The obligatory threat.

Too late for what, I wonder?

God be with you and your families. That’s a kindness and sentiment you’d never offer to a Christian, but we offer it to you.

Yes, I felt your kindness throughout your post. It shone from the computer screen and warmed my face.

I also didn’t see too many earnest questions throughout your post. I know you promised them, but sadly they were absent.

I wish you and your family well also.

So now you can never say it’s a sentiment an atheist would never share with you.

The idea that if you don’t believe in a God that you have no right to express your thoughts on right or wrong because you’re merely a composition of chemicals is an annoying one. Religion continues to push the idea that we need moral absolutes (or objective morals) that were passed on from deity to human. This means there is a right and wrong answer and some religious people will argue that everyone knows this (because it’s written on our hearts or some such nonsense) but it only takes a quick scan of the internet to see that morally speaking, each region of the world operates very differently. In some places, whipping is a good way to punish someone. In other parts, people consider the death penalty a good form of deterrence.

Everywhere you look, you see the reality: no deity handed down anything. We as a species decide what is right and wrong and only we enforce it. That may be a scary thought for some, but I find it comforting. After all, secular morality outstrips religious morality at every turn.

It’s as if some people can’t understand why rape is not a good idea. They can’t consider what the victim would feel like. Do they want to live in a society where being raped is okay? Do they really think that the best way for our species to flourish is to run around raping people? Do they not have any compassion for other people? Can they not read and take in information on what rape does to other people both physically and mentally, and come to the conclusion that rape isn’t good for individuals, neighborhoods or societies?

That doesn’t mean there won’t be grades of ‘good’. There may be more than one answer to a moral question and as time goes by and we gather more data, we may find better ways to deal with certain situations.

For example, for a long time (and even today) we have thought that incarcerating and shaming people who are addicted (or even use) to drugs was the best way to deal with drug abuse.

However, we are currently analyzing data from Portugal that shows decriminalizing all drugs may be a far more effective way of handling the drug issue. Fourteen years ago, Portugal decriminalized drugs and they have seen drug use drop ever since.

I saw a video the other day from Grappling Ignorance, and in his video he says:

US congress arrived at its current legislation by evaluating practical needs, benefits and potential harms of its citizens. It decided that the practical way to live would be to offer the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to as many people as it can, provided that their efforts in doing so do not infringe on the rights of others to do so- and not a word of that practical policy was derived from holy scripture. People want to live in a society where other people don’t steal from them, or have the ability to murder them without deterrent or consequence. The people collectively demand it, the government deems it practical by discussion and debate, and it becomes law. No need for divinity.

We’ve been taught that subjective morality is a dirty thing, but I think it’s the best way to describe an ever-changing ethical code that has nothing to do with a deity and everything to do with us. We determine right from wrong and while some answers are easier than others, there can clearly be right ways of promoting human flourishing and wrong ways.

Another neat talk I saw about this subject a while ago was given by Sam Harris. I’ll post both videos at the bottom. I hope you’ll watch them.

I seriously think we need to get past the idea that we need objective morality and embrace the idea that reason, empathy, and compassion and our desire to promote happiness is a far better marker for creating ethical codes that actually work.

When I clicked on the link for an Islamic blog, I was hit with the title above, which linked to a paper that supposedly affirms the existence of God. Not surprisingly, the comments on the blog were turned off and the next line in the post read:

Take it or leave it. I will not argue with an atheist.

In other words, you aren’t interested in discussion.

However, thanks to the internet, anything you post publicly can be responded too. That’s exactly what’s about to happen.

*wink*

The paper he links too can be read in its entirety (all 8 pages of it, which I did) by clicking on the link. Just as an aside, I love that the line beneath the title reads:

A certified presenter of Islam (BCII), a member of online dialogue to present Islam

Here I thought a ‘dialogue’ took place between two or more people. Silly me.

Anyways, let’s take a look at this evidence.

His first point is that belief in God seems to be innate:

Believing in God it seems to be something built in the human mind and heart. Consequently, it is not surprising to find that all human societies throughout human history, with very few exceptions, have believed in the existence of God. If we look throughout the history of mankind, definitely we find that the majority of people have believed in God. Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle rationally concluded that God must exist.

He goes on to conclude that non-belief in God is unnatural to the human-being.

If it happens in nature, it’s natural. Since there are people (atheists) who don’t believe in your god or any other god, we can conclude it’s natural. It happened in the natural world.

You even say that there are a few exceptions to believing in god, which shows you that you don’t even believe your own words. You’ve admitting that not everyone or every society has believed in a deity. So while you might argue that belief in a deity is innate in some people, it doesn’t seem to be the case in all people.

Also, no matter how many people believe in god, it still doesn’t prove you’re right. I’m still waiting for this rationale approach, although I’m assuming you meant ‘rational’.

His second point is literally that ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’.

In the time of extreme stress or fear, all people seek help from higher power and search for hope. They moreover pray supplications to God and they invoke God to save them at that hard moment. It plainly means that people really affirms God‟s presence and believe in Him. This situation is described in one of God‟s Book (Holy Quran).

Well, that’s clearly and demonstrably not true. You can easily do a Google search and find tales of atheist soldiers who recount their experiences. For example, you could find this one:

The radio man sputtered, “Oh, Lord! Lord! Help us!” My response to him was to stop praying. I exclaimed, “To hell with God! You help us! You radio back for mortar and artillery fire support!” Fortunately, he regained his composure and radioed the forward observers for fire support to be directed at our map coordinates. Common sense dictated that staying alive was more important than wasting precious time praying. Consequently, he saved our lives.

Well…there goes that theory. I guess there really are atheists in foxholes. But again, even if there weren’t, you’ve yet to provide a lick of evidence that your god exists.

His next point is the causality law:

The Big Bang Theory states that the universe was in a very high density state and then expanded. After the initial expansion (sudden explosion), the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies. It seems that The Big Bang Theory may explain the origin of the universe, but it does not have an explanation for the sudden explosion and it doesn’t explain the origin of the primordial dust cloud and. So where did that come from? Who, or what, created the primordial dust cloud?

Must be Allah! Or Zeus, Mithra, Odin, Jesus, Yahweh, Loki.

Just because we don’t know something, doesn’t mean you can stick your god in the gap of knowledge and proclaim you’re right. Besides, billions of other people are doing the exact same thing, and none of you can explain why you’re right and they’re wrong.

Your jumping to conclusions is not helping.

I find theists do this quite a bit. They’ll say you believe or don’t believe this, therefore you MUST believe this.

Um, no. It merely means I don’t believe what I said I don’t believe. This person is basically saying we must have been created from something, we didn’t create ourselves, therefore:

The only remaining possibility is that humans and the universe were created by a being which is not itself created (God).

Nope. We could be a computer simulation. There could be a scientific explanation for it. There are plenty of other potential or unknown explanations. Your explanation doesn’t automatically become the default one and you don’t get to tell people what they believe.

The next point is intelligent design.

This is such a weak argument. If you were a creator creating something specifically for one species, would you make 99.999999% of it uninhabitable by that species?

The Earth is mostly hostile to human life. Our planet is literally surrounded by an irradiated vacuum! Does that sound intelligently designed to you?

Then he plays the morality card.

If there is no God, there is no value for morality and our lives do not have any ultimate meaning and significance purpose. If there is no God, everything is permitted.” Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist.

This is the same argument made by many a Christian. I don’t get the connection between god existing or not existing and morality or value. Of course it has a purpose. We are all conscious beings and how we treat each other and how we experience this life is reason enough to evaluate our own morality. That’s the purpose.

Last but not least, he puts down his trump card: miracles.

A miracle is defined as an extraordinary event that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is attributed to a supernatural cause (God). This miracle usually happened on the hands of the prophets.

Miracles, when investigated, often have completely natural explanations. James Randi put out a challenge in 1964 that would pay one million dollars ‘to any person who demonstrates any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability under satisfactory observation’, and it’s always resulted in an embarrassing display from people claiming to have extraordinary powers.

Every religion has its own set of miracle stories. None have been corroborated and your miracles are every bit as believable as another religions.

If that’s all you got, I can see why you don’t want to field comments on your blog. Your ‘dialogue’ is to yourself and those who are easily convinced or who already agree with you.